Search engines are frequently used by Internet users to locate information on the Internet that is of interest. Search engines generally operate by receiving a search query from a user and returning search results to the user. Many search engines order the returned search results in some fashion (e.g., based on the relevance of each returned search result to the search query). Thus, the quality of the search query may greatly impact the quality of the search results. However, a search query from a user may be incomplete or overbroad (e.g., the search query does not include enough words to generate a focused set of relevant results and instead generates a large number of irrelevant results).
One current method of improving search results is using word frequencies to weight search words by importance. However, this method may result in irrelevant words (e.g., “a,” “and,” “the,” etc.) having high weights because they are among the most frequently used words. Another method of improving search results is by using an encyclopedia to disambiguate words in the search queries. For example, an online encyclopedia may be used in an attempt to determine whether as earh term, the word “bar” in a search query, refers to a retail establishment where alcohol is served, a counter from which drinks are dispensed, a unit of pressure measurement, a segment of music, a legal organization, a type of lagoon, etc. However, word disambiguation may not directly identify any way to improve the search query itself.